This week, EY announced the appointment of Joe Depa (literally who?) as Global Chief Innovation Officer. If you were hoping the press release would give you his resume, you’ll be disappointed to find out it drops no names.
Throughout the last decade, Depa has worked closely with C-suite leaders and boards to bring innovative products and services to market, improve client and employee experiences, and help enhance operational efficiencies through technology. Most recently, he served as the inaugural Chief Data and AI Officer at a leading university and health care organization. At the university, he helped to promote AI literacy, launch a responsible AI governance program and enable a secure data foundation. Prior to that, he acted as Senior Managing Director and Global Lead for Data and AI at a global multinational professional services company, where he led a team of AI strategists and data engineers in developing and implementing new products and services
Alright so they’re going to make us Google it. That leading university appears to be Emory and he was appointed to the chief data and AI guy position just last year. Emory did name names in their announcement so now we know the “global multinational professional services company” mentioned in EY’s announcement is Accenture:
Depa comes to Emory from Accenture, a Fortune 50 technology provider, where he served as the senior managing director and global lead for data and AI for the company’s strategy and consulting business. There he managed their award-winning team of global professionals specializing in data science and AI strategy, and served on the global leadership committee. He focused on helping clients in health, life sciences and across industries to leverage data to develop new clinical data products, improve the patient and employee experience and reduce operating expenses.
At EY, Depa will “lead on the discovery and deployment of emerging technologies to help address business challenges and shape the future with confidence.” Translation: “Figure out how the firm can make buckets of money from AI.”
“I’m truly excited to join an organization that is ‘All in’ on its commitment to the transformative potential of emerging technologies,” said whoever wrote this quote attributed to Joe Depa in the press release, referencing EY’s post-Vision 2020 “All In” strategy that hasn’t caught on at all yet. “I look forward to working with the EY teams and clients to help empower them to apply innovation in bold, new ways that help create value for clients through data, AI and emerging technologies to make the world a better place.”
Missed opportunity to fit “build a better working world” in there, Joe. Maybe we’re not using that anymore.
EY’s last Chief Innovation Officer was Jeff Wong who held the position from 2015 until this past summer.
Joe Depa named as EY Global Chief Innovation Officer to lead its global innovation strategy [PR Newswire]
“Transformative potential of emerging technologies” is just a fancy way for The Man to publicly masturbate to the thought of reducing headcount.
And “making the world a better place” is just a fancy way for The Man to conceptualize all the money he’s going to make (save) thanks to the “emerging technologies”.
100% of the excitement in corporate America about AI is from the thought of reducing payroll costs.
“We’re so happy…
We can hardly count…
Oh by they way which ones pink?”
As an outsider my questions is…AI is meant to disrupt and destroy the entire public accounting model. The PA model is essentially, hire fresh grads who are paid less but charged out at a high rate to do work and then the margins rise up to the partners to pay their huge salaries. Same goes for Managers, Directors, etc. The PA model is built on more people, more margins, more profits, and cascading up of dollars to pay for the Partners.
With AI, this existing model is destroyed. With AI, you need LESS people and customers know this. They will demand LOWER rates. If they don’t get lower rates, they will shop someplace else. Do PA firms think that they can charge the same amount using AI? I think not.
So, when PA firms state that they are making “yuge” investments in AI, what exactly are they investing in? Their funerals? Every dollar they invest will remove a dollar from their profits.
With the current models of ChatGPT and with Gemini, and with APIs we are able to generate all the test templates, execute the analysis, form conclusions, and literally EVERY step of the audit process is completed and done perfectly. Also, all the ERP vendors are investing heavily in audit automation. Reconciliations and other accounting processes are all automated. We still need a few humans but not many. Maybe ten percent of current bench strength. That’s it.
So when PA firms state they are investing in AI, I would love to know what they intend to build. Anything they build will inevitably cannibalize their business model.
Yeah, we officially dropped “building a better working world” a few months ago – “shaping the future with confidence” is our new line.